


to make you stay

by honeybadgers



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Deep talk, Forgiving, hopeful shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 06:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11846046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybadgers/pseuds/honeybadgers
Summary: Sometimes making things clear is necessary to move on.





	to make you stay

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from 'blue' by troye sivan.
> 
> thank you daphne for supporting this tiny depressing shit <3

Some people make a change look easy. That you leave for something else, that you leave for something else. Like Sebastian, who made his switch from Red Bull to Ferrari look easy.

 

But Nico knows that it wasn't easy, at least later on the season. He sees it. He always has been a good observer because it felt like it was a necessity to see things, to understand things. So the yearning glances from the German towards the Red Bull stall don't go unnoticed. Glances of could been’s. But also something Nico couldn't place. He isn't surprised that the German has problems with it. When he left Williams for Mercedes it was hard. They were the ones who saw potential in him. They were the ones who gave him the drive.

 

You leave people behind. No, not people. History. You close a chapter. A chapter of your life and not just one. You close your breakthrough. But not just that, Nico realises. And maybe he understands the fellow German. Because he feels the same. And not only the reminiscence.

 

Nico is sitting on the couch in his -well, their- apartment, the blue sky and all the ships and the modern buildings all within his eyesight. And he is restless. He thought retiring from Formula One would have been much easier, no stress, no pressure from the team. no rivalry. But it isn't. Racing - and everything around it - has been a part of his life for such a long time that he doesn't know otherwise. He misses it, he aches for it. 

 

He misses the kick he gets from the car, its speed making his own heart rate increase. He misses the rivalry, giving an adrenaline boost.

 

The thing he misses the most is the team.

 

The team that pushed Nico to his limit. The team that gave them a car that gave them the ability to win. The team who kept having faith in him after so many second places in the World Driver’s Championship. 

And that is something he can't repay to them, never. 

Nor to Lewis, if he admitted it. Even after all the years of rivalry and dismay between them, a small part is glad that he was there, ever since the beginning. Not always with him, but he was there. The team made the car, decided the strategies, but in the end, it depended all on them, the drivers. They needed to bring the car to the finish in the first place. They had to do it on the track.

 

He misses his teammate because he was the one who challenged him, brought out his best driving and maybe indirectly they brought out each other's worsts because of it. Because of their driving. And they were such good friends in the past. What happened between us?

 

“You okay?”

 

Nico has been so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't hear Vivian arriving back home with Alaïa. When he looks at her, she is leaning against the door, their daughter in her arms, biting her lip.

 

“Of course.”

 

He looks at her, and he doesn't know if he is trying to convince her or himself.

* * *

* * *

 

The next time he sees his teammate -well, ex-teammate- is in Monaco. He wasn't surprised with the fact that he had to do the podium interviews, but he was surprised that Lewis didn't get the podium. He tries to sound happy, but it is difficult. He talks a bit with Sebastian and the Finns. 

But when he sees Valtteri standing there, that tiny Finnish flag on his overalls, Mercedes overalls which make him Lewis’s new teammate, everything he used to be, he feels sad. He tries to make a joke with Kimi to hide the changed expression and he succeeds on making the sadness disappear, even if it is for a moment but he doesn't get a response.  Kimi is still the same but Nico feels estranged from them, from everything. So he leaves the circuit and heads over to his apartment with a heavy heart.

 

He didn't expect that Lewis was waiting in front of his door. Not. At. All.

 

“What are you doing here?” Nico asks, and he inmeadiately regrets it because he sounds harsher than he wanted to be and he sees the Brit flinch, slightly.

 

“I-I just wanted to see you.” Lewis says, and he looks vulnerable. Hurt, maybe.

“I thought you were done with me.”

 

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Nico says in a soft voice.

 

But when he had closed the door after Lewis had entered the house, he realises something. 

 

He never answered the question.

 

They settle on the couch, the one Nico had been reminiscing about his racing career for hours.

 

“Is there something you need to say?” the blonde asks. He is staring at Lewis’s hands because he can't bear to look in the Brit’s brown eyes.

 

P“I don't know honestly. I don't know why I came here to your place. I just needed to be somewhere away from the camera's.  You weren't my first choice though.”

 

Silence falls over them.

 

You weren't my first choice you weren't my first choice.

 

And Nico is hurt but he understands. He was the one who announced that he would leave Formula One five days after becoming world champion. And he didn't tell Lewis about it in advance. Of course, of course he wouldn't head to my place. Because no matter how harsh it sounded, he probably wouldn't have picked Lewis his first place to crash either if the roles were reversed.

 

“But somehow I went to you. And I didn't know why I did until I saw you in the corridor, with a surprised expression because you never expected me, your rival as the press likes to say it, in front of your door.”

 

“Because you always were there,” Lewis says. “We weren't the best of friends, I know that and you know that too. But you were there, ever since we were younger. You were always there when I had my lows and my highs. You sometimes didn't support me but you never downgraded me, like some people can do. You were there, no matter what happened.”

 

“But then you left Formula One and it was no joke, as I originally thought. You seriously did. You seriously left. And I was hurt, of course. And on one point, I thought it was because of me. That we became so toxic because of one another that you got suffocated. That you couldn't handle the situation because of me. That I scared you away.”

 

“I miss you, how weird it sounds. Val is really nice, with the kind of humor you would expect from Kimi as well. But it doesn't feel the same. It doesn't feel the same like it used to be.”

 

“And I am not asking you to come back, that is too much to ask. But I just want to be sure we are on good terms. I am not angry at you, I can't be. I just am, no was, a bit...disappointed. Not of you leaving, but you not telling me. I had to find it out this way. I-I-I… Where is this conversation heading to?”

 

The Brit releases his breath. Like he has held it in for too long, all the emotions cropped up for too long. And maybe they both are, because also the German exhaled his breath, afraid for something, anything that might have ruined the chance of a clean start. 

 

They both were full of unspoken things, things that had to be made clear between them.

 

“I don't know, but maybe it is good that we had it. For both of us. We needed to make things become clear, because we have gone through some shit both with and against one another. We have history. And we can't erase it like it never existed. I am not able to be in that state of denial. Because I feel the same. It is hard to let go of a history you have with someone, whether positive or negative. Everything what was. I don't wanna give that up. Is there a opportunity to not be what was, but what will be?” Nico says.

 

“I would gladly do,” Lewis says, with a small smile on his face. “I would gladly do.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
